I agree that China does not have the same kind of military power projection capabilities that the USSR did or that the USA does, but don't you think that it wields an unparalleled amount of economic influence globally? The Chinese government regularly uses economic pressure to force foreign individuals, businesses and even countries to toe the party line. Even if this doesn't qualify them as a superpower to political scientists, to the casual observer it does seem to place them second only to the USA as essentially uncontestable global actors.

If you classify China (and not Japan) as a great power, who else would you consider to be in that group? Germany? I don't think they have the same clout outside of Europe that China does outside of Asia.